'The collective memory of a nation is indispensable if we want to
understand who we are, to understand where we have come from, to better
comprehend where we find ourselves and where we are going. Archives are
the documentary base of this collective memory, which itself is so
important to maintain and strengthen national identity ...'
(Translated extract from an editorial in Avui, a Catalan daily
newspaper, 1996)

This statement is as good a summary of the social role and significance
of archives as I have encountered. But what prompted the Avui leader
writer to pen a statement that would gladden the hearts of all
archivists? The context is a controversy surrounding Catalan government
records seized by the Castilians during the Spanish Civil War and housed
ever since in the Archives of Salamanca. After sixty years this issue
still burns the Catalan soul, fuelling public meetings and the rhetoric
of politicians and journalists alike.

While the statement sits comfortably with the image the public holds of
archivists, many archivists would point out that they do much more than
preserve the documentary base of a nation's collective memory. By
professionally managing good recordkeeping systems, government and
corporate archivists play a vital role in preserving the corporate
memory of their organisations. This in turn underpins corporate
efficiency, governance and accountability.

Moreover, very few members of the general public would be aware that
over the past five to ten years the archival profession has been busy
reinventing itself. During this period computer-based means of creating
and keeping records have become widespread. As a consequence it has
been recognised that the archival and records management practices which
may have worked in the paper-based environment are inadequate for
managing the electronic recordkeeping environment. In the process of
redefining strategies archivists have been forced to return to first
principles in order to reassess their basic mission.

Last year the archival community in the United States was plunged into
gloom when President Clinton appointed a former dairy farmer and
Governor of the State of Kansas, John Carlin, to head the National
Archives and Records Administration (NARA). Archivists bewailed what
they saw as the purely political appointment of a man with no background
nor apparent interest in the work of archives. The signs are, however,
that this initial pessimism was misplaced. Reports from the US suggest
that Carlin is embarking upon a vigorous program of reinventing the
National Archives. As a newcomer who lacks the emotional and procedural
baggage of the past, Carlin is facing up to the archival challenges of
the coming millennium by first of all developing a clear picture of the
basic mission of archives. In his inaugural circular to staff he summed
up this mission in five words: 'ensuring access to essential evidence'.
If this means reinventing archival concepts, processes and priorities,
so be it.

The emergence of this new school of archival thought has been made
possible by a fascinating tri-lateral interaction between leading
archival thinkers in the United States, Canada and Australia. From an
Australian perspective it has been particularly interesting to note the
impact that the Australian input has had on the international debate.
In large part this is a reflection of the high quality of much of the
work that has been pioneered in Australia in recent years. It is also I
believe a recognition of the contemporary relevance of the Australian
school of archival thought, a school that for many years was considered
an idiosyncratic irrelevancy by the international community of
archivists.

In re-examining first principles, North American theorists found much to
recommend the so-called 'Australian system' which was pioneered by
Australia's first national archivist, Ian Maclean, and the Australian
Archives' intellectual powerhouse and enfant terrible of the 1960s and
1970s, Peter Scott. A key element of this system was a rejection of the
traditional North American division between the work of records managers
(who work with current records) and archivists (who work with
non-current or historical records). Intrinsic to the Australian system
is the philosophy that if archivists are to have historical records to
preserve they first of all have to ensure that the current records are
properly created and maintained. This proactive philosophy rejects the
notion that the archival mission is based upon the post-hoc practice of
sweeping up inactive records as detritus or, as one commentator has put
it, 'picking up after the kids'.

The advent of electronic records brought home to North American
archivists the fundamental truth of this philosophy. The first sign of
this awakened American interest in Australian thinking emerged in 1991
with the Australian visit by the Pittsburgh-based manager of Archives
and Museums Informatics, David Bearman. During his visit Bearman learnt
enough about Australian theory and practice to become intrigued. What
followed was the growth of a symbiotic relationship between Bearman and
the Australian archival community, a relationship that involved regular
return visits by Bearman and an exciting cross-fertilisation of thought
between the two. The timing proved crucial. As a major figure in the
emerging North American discourse, Bearman was able to influence his
contemporaries to pay more attention to Australian developments.
Between 1991 and 1996 Bearman, his associates at the University of
Pittsburgh School of Library and Information Science and soulmates at
the National Archives of Canada and various Canadian archives schools,
together with a growing band of Australian thinkers, turned archival
thinking on its head.

Crucial contributors to the Australian end of the discourse have
included: former Victorian Keeper of Public Records, Chris Hurley; Head
of the Records Management Office of New South Wales, David Roberts;
Queensland University Archivist, Glenda Acland; a team of policy-makers
from the National Office of the Australian Archives; and the academic
staff of the Monash University Department of Librarianship, Archives and
Records.

In June and July 1996 the Monash Archives School ran week-long workshops
in Melbourne and Canberra in which Bearman and most of the leading
Australian thinkers and practitioners participated. Called 'Managing
the Records Continuum', the intention of the workshops was to assess the
progress that has been made in reinventing archives over the last five
years, to bring participants up to speed with the very latest
developments and to debate future directions.

The theoretical framework for the workshops was provided by the 'Records
Continuum' model which has been developed by Frank Upward, Sue McKemmish
and their Monash colleagues. In essence this model rejects the
traditional 'life cycle' model of records which embodies a strict
division between current and historical recordkeeping. The aim of the
model is to promote regimes of integrated records management and
archival processes. Rather than the life cycle model which posits
clearly defined stages through which records pass, the continuum model
posits a continuous series of elements passing into each other in which
no separate parts are readily discernible. For example, what used to be
thought of as the historical recordkeeping end of the life cycle has
been reconceptualised in such a way that historical considerations can
now be applied from the moment records are created.

Many of the workshop sessions focused on the practical meaning of the
continuum model in the context of the implementation of recent
innovations. Speakers from the Australian Archives and the Records
Management Office of New South Wales described their recent efforts at
designing and implementing workable strategies for the capture and
ongoing management of electronic records. These strategies are based on
the assumption that, in the electronic environment, archival
organisations no longer have to assume physical custody of records in
order to be able to fulfil the archival role of controlling and
defending the records. The custodial debate has been probably the most
controversial development ever in the Australian archival scene. Not
only have the promoters of the new policy experienced difficulty in
convincing government agencies of the advantages of the distributed
custody model, there has also been significant opposition to the
strategy from traditionalists within the archival organisations
themselves. These concerns centre around the physical and functional
fragility of electronic media, the consequent need for regular
migrations of records across software platforms and the reliability or
willingness of agencies to manage such fragile records over the long
term.

David Bearman was able to suggest a path beyond the custodial debate.
For the past three years Bearman has participated in a research project
at the University of Pittsburgh, the aim of which has been to identify
the functional requirements for evidence in electronic recordkeeping.
The project has developed a set of standardised specifications which, if
successfully implemented, will guarantee the creation, capture and
ongoing management of complete, reliable and authentic electronic
records of business and organisational activity. Essentially, the
specifications identify the software-independent contextual and
descriptive information (or metadata) which must be captured and
preserved in electronic recordkeeping systems in order to ensure the
reliability, useability and accessibility of the records over time.
When these specifications are incorporated into electronic recordkeeping
systems custody will, according to Bearman, become a non-issue. This is
because there will then exist the capacity for 'virtual archives', that
is archives which exist only in cyberspace.

The real issue is not custody, but control of records and the
archivist's role in this. To guarantee the ongoing authenticity of
records, control should always be exercised by the archivist. In that
sense the whole custody brouhaha may have been an unfortunate
distraction. What archivists should have been talking to their clients
about is not custody, but good recordkeeping practices which make it
possible for archivists to exercise the necessary control. With the
adoption of good electronic recordkeeping practices, the archives can
take physical custody of records should that be the wish of the
government agency. Alternatively, should the agency wish to retain
custody, that should be just as easily accommodated, providing everyone
agrees that archives have responsibilities for controlling the records.
In coming years it will be interesting to watch forward thinking
government archivists try to work their way through the debris of the
custodial debate and regain the hearts and minds of their internal and
external constituents through the promotion of the benefits of good
electronic recordkeeping and the application of the Pittsburgh metadata
specifications.

My involvement in the workshops was as spokesperson for the personal
records sub-branch of the archival profession. In recent years I have
been critical of aspects of the post-custodial discourse for being too
heavily preoccupied with current recordkeeping requirements in corporate
domains and neglecting longer term social and historical requirements,
especially in the field of personal records. I have been pleased,
however, to note that many of my criticisms appear to have been heeded.
In particular, the Monash continuum model takes a holistic approach to
recordkeeping and explicitly addresses the sorts of concerns I have been
raising. More research needs to be done on identifying the functional
requirements for personal recordkeeping and socio-historical evidence.
Following the completion of that research it will then be necessary to
develop documentation/metadata specifications and strategies that fulfil
these requirements. In the Pittsburgh Project we now have a good
framework on which such research can be modelled. The major obstacle
will then be convincing personal records archivists that, in the
interests of durable recordkeeping, it will be necessary for them to
become more involved in the records creation phase of personal records
than has ever previously been the case.

A failure by personal records archivists to face up to these challenges
will guarantee the wholesale disappearance of valuable records which are
currently being created and maintained in electronic form by private
individuals. The existence of large gaps in our documentary heritage
will surely be viewed by future generations as the result of an
abdication by today's archivists of their responsibility to ensure the
capture and preservation of essential evidence of significant social and
intellectual activity. While some years ago there was widespread
pessimism about the realistic chances of archivists being able to
preserve electronic records, the Monash workshops demonstrated that we
now have reason to be optimistic. The challenges are great, but the
tools and understandings now exist to enable us to overcome them.